Lk 3:1-6
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. This is a line from a famous poem by Antonio Machado, and means “traveler there is no path, the path is made by walking.”
So if there is no ready made path for us to follow, as Christians, as people of faith in this holy season of Advent, what guides our feet that make the paths that will heed John’s call to “prepare the way of the Lord?” I propose it is the dream or the vision we hold, that guides our feet which make the paths of justice, righteousness, peace, and mercy a reality.
Now there are two guiding dreams juxtaposed in our Gospel tonight and in our world today: the dream of empire and the dream of God. First half of the Gospel is a long list of names, names of those who had power at this time, these were the keepers of the dream of empire. The dream/vision of empire was to maintain consolidated power and control, to grow profits, expand territory, and assert domination.
But where does the Word of God, which we could call the Dream of God, show up? In John, son of Zachariah, in the desert. I want you to hold onto that image as we break open this Advent story together. Who is entrusted with the dream of God and where do they reside.
So let’s start with John the Baptist and then I want to reflect on three modern contexts where I see this same story playing out. The desert is not the first place that John hears or encounters the Word, the Dream of God. He first heard this dream proclaimed by Mary in utero, while his mother Elizabeth was still pregnant. John was one of the first witnesses to the Magnificat. He was also raised by Elizabeth and Zechariah, two faithful Jews who had intimately experienced God’s power and goodness and would have shared those experiences and the wisdom of their people to their son as he grew up. Part of Jewish belief at this time, particularly in some of the desert communities of which John may have lived, was a belief in the coming Messiah or a Messianic Age, this would be a time when the oppressor was cast down, when the people’s freedom and autonomy were restored, and peace and justice would reign.
So John is well prepared to receive the Word of God in the desert which inspires him to proclaim the good news of the coming Messiah and to prepare others for his arrival. John calls for a baptism of the repentance of sins because he could see that before others could nurture the dream and join him in walking the road to peace and justice there had to be a recognition of the past/current sin holding them back and a true conversion to change their ways. Perhaps inspired by the words of the prophet Amos, he invited people into the mighty stream of the river Jordan to experience a conversion that would pave the way for justice to flow like the very waters of Baptism.
There are many modern day John the Baptists, crying out from the desert places of society, treading dangerous paths, and forging new ways to bring about this same dream/vision of peace and justice. And just as John the Baptist did, they stand in opposition to the dream of empire.
I want to just highlight three:
I just spent the last two days in Washington DC at a conference on immigration, so I want to start first with what has been called the Migrant Caravan.
Most of you have probably heard by over the past month or so there have been thousands of people, traveling together primarily from the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, over thousands of miles on paths filled with violence, danger, hunger and thirst, fear and uncertainty. They are desert roads and mountain roads, exposed to the harsh natural climates. They are not just fleeing from, but also moving toward a belief that there will be a safe place they can raise their children, where they can grow and prosper. They are making the road by walking up to our front door step and crying out: see me, hear me, don’t turn away, I am here and I matter. They hold a vision of God’s dream for them and their families that has come into violent conflict with the vision of a nationalist empire.
The vision of the nationalist empire separates us and them, it says we have to secure the borders, protect our own, those “others” are to be feared, judged, locked up, even treated as less than human. The vision of a nationalist empire believes in scarcity, in limited resources and so we must protect what is ours.
But the vision of God says that I am my brother and sisters keeper, that we are one body and when one suffers all suffer. The vision of God believes in abundance, that there are actually enough resources to go around if we share with one another.
Which dream is guiding our feet in responding to these migrants and refugees at our border?
While I was in Washington D.C. I finally had a chance to visit the Museum of African American History and Culture. A popular phrase in black and womanist theology which I saw throughout the exhibits is “Making a Way Out of No Way.” Holding fast to the dream of God, African Americans have consistently been able to walk into being a path toward freedom when it seemed most impossible.
The dream they were told to believe in by the slave traders and masters was one of grateful submission, but incredibly - while a message of servitude was preached, a message of liberation was heard. And this dream of God for all God’s people to be free, guided the feet that created paths of the underground railroad, guided the feet of soldiers marching in war for liberty for all, guided the feet in the reconstruction era creating new paths for community prosperity and civic participation, guided the feet of millions during the great northern migration, guided the feet of those who knew to keep God’s dream alive they had to create their own churches as spaces to nourish and share this dream of God for their freedom with one another. This is the dream that guided the brave feet marching for freedom and justice during the civil rights campaigns, and continuing to march in the streets today for black lives to matter and the ability to exist in the world without the assumption of criminality simply for having darker skin.
Now the dream of the white supremacist empire which says God created a racial hierarchy and that what is best, what is normal, is that which is rooted in whiteness, and those closest to whiteness have a right to dominate others, was well on display at this museum as well. This is a dream that unfortunately still guides and infects many of the laws, structures, and institutions of this country.
But it isn’t the most powerful dream. That was so clear to me at this museum, the dream of God that African Americans have held on to despite unimaginable, horrific suffering and oppression, is the one that will win out in the end, the dream that calls forth black excellence and black beauty and celebrates it as good, and holy, and needed for God’s dream to be fully realized.
So which dream is guiding us in our response to the ongoing struggle for racial equity today?
The final group and path that I want to briefly mention are the Climate Pilgrims who have spent the last 65 days walking over 1,500 kilometers from the Vatican to Poland for the annual climate summit, COP 24 this year. They are seeking to walk into being the path of an integral ecology as called for by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si, a renewed spirituality and vision that sees all of God’s creation as interconnected, as precious and worthy of care and protection, and prioritizes ecological well being over a consumer and profit driven culture. They have been collecting the prayers and dreams of people throughout the world along their journey and are presenting them now to the leaders gathered at COP 24.
The dream of the anthropocentric (human centered) empire is again one of hierarchy and domination, seeing the created world as a commodity to be used and discarded as needed for individual profit and gain. It is a dream that has severed the intimate bonds that connect all life and keep us healthy, and it is a dream therefore that is killing the planet and all life that calls earth home.
These climate pilgrims by walking this new road are hoping to inspire God’s dream for healthy and flourishing life throughout creation with others, so that we can make some serious changes to our global economic systems and practices before it is too late.
Which dream is guiding our own responses to the ever worsening impacts of climate change?
With the dreams of empire getting the most air time these days, it may seem like the dream of God has been forgotten, distorted, or is even dead. But I was reminded and challenged by an e-mail newsletter that I get from a reflection by the Rev. Anna Blaedel, to ask in this season of Advent: what if the dream is not dead, just waiting to be born?
Our Scriptures and the living history of our faith witness to us that the dream of God has survived generations and millennia of war, conquests, oppression, slavery, and environmental degradation. If we have forgotten the dream, if we can’t see the vision clearly, or if we have lost our hope, perhaps we are not spending enough time with the dream keepers. By stepping outside those places of power and privilege we hold, by making ourselves vulnerable and gaining a new perspective, we water the seed of the dream implanted in our hearts at our inception as imago Dei; we can hear the voices of those crying out from desert spaces and have the courage to wade through the waters reminding us of our baptism, cleansed from sin, and called into a community of solidarity walking the path of liberation together, preparing the way for God’s peace, justice, and righteousness to take on flesh in the world.
In this season of Advent, this season of pregnant preparation for dreams gestating in darkness, let us hear once again and hold fast to this dream of our faith, this dream of God, passed down through the centuries, through the ancestors, through courageous and faithful women and the children they raised, and let it guide our path so that the roads we are creating by walking are roads that do pave the way for us to welcome Christ into the world anew.
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. This is a line from a famous poem by Antonio Machado, and means “traveler there is no path, the path is made by walking.”
So if there is no ready made path for us to follow, as Christians, as people of faith in this holy season of Advent, what guides our feet that make the paths that will heed John’s call to “prepare the way of the Lord?” I propose it is the dream or the vision we hold, that guides our feet which make the paths of justice, righteousness, peace, and mercy a reality.
Now there are two guiding dreams juxtaposed in our Gospel tonight and in our world today: the dream of empire and the dream of God. First half of the Gospel is a long list of names, names of those who had power at this time, these were the keepers of the dream of empire. The dream/vision of empire was to maintain consolidated power and control, to grow profits, expand territory, and assert domination.
But where does the Word of God, which we could call the Dream of God, show up? In John, son of Zachariah, in the desert. I want you to hold onto that image as we break open this Advent story together. Who is entrusted with the dream of God and where do they reside.
So let’s start with John the Baptist and then I want to reflect on three modern contexts where I see this same story playing out. The desert is not the first place that John hears or encounters the Word, the Dream of God. He first heard this dream proclaimed by Mary in utero, while his mother Elizabeth was still pregnant. John was one of the first witnesses to the Magnificat. He was also raised by Elizabeth and Zechariah, two faithful Jews who had intimately experienced God’s power and goodness and would have shared those experiences and the wisdom of their people to their son as he grew up. Part of Jewish belief at this time, particularly in some of the desert communities of which John may have lived, was a belief in the coming Messiah or a Messianic Age, this would be a time when the oppressor was cast down, when the people’s freedom and autonomy were restored, and peace and justice would reign.
So John is well prepared to receive the Word of God in the desert which inspires him to proclaim the good news of the coming Messiah and to prepare others for his arrival. John calls for a baptism of the repentance of sins because he could see that before others could nurture the dream and join him in walking the road to peace and justice there had to be a recognition of the past/current sin holding them back and a true conversion to change their ways. Perhaps inspired by the words of the prophet Amos, he invited people into the mighty stream of the river Jordan to experience a conversion that would pave the way for justice to flow like the very waters of Baptism.
There are many modern day John the Baptists, crying out from the desert places of society, treading dangerous paths, and forging new ways to bring about this same dream/vision of peace and justice. And just as John the Baptist did, they stand in opposition to the dream of empire.
I want to just highlight three:
I just spent the last two days in Washington DC at a conference on immigration, so I want to start first with what has been called the Migrant Caravan.
Most of you have probably heard by over the past month or so there have been thousands of people, traveling together primarily from the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, over thousands of miles on paths filled with violence, danger, hunger and thirst, fear and uncertainty. They are desert roads and mountain roads, exposed to the harsh natural climates. They are not just fleeing from, but also moving toward a belief that there will be a safe place they can raise their children, where they can grow and prosper. They are making the road by walking up to our front door step and crying out: see me, hear me, don’t turn away, I am here and I matter. They hold a vision of God’s dream for them and their families that has come into violent conflict with the vision of a nationalist empire.
The vision of the nationalist empire separates us and them, it says we have to secure the borders, protect our own, those “others” are to be feared, judged, locked up, even treated as less than human. The vision of a nationalist empire believes in scarcity, in limited resources and so we must protect what is ours.
But the vision of God says that I am my brother and sisters keeper, that we are one body and when one suffers all suffer. The vision of God believes in abundance, that there are actually enough resources to go around if we share with one another.
Which dream is guiding our feet in responding to these migrants and refugees at our border?
While I was in Washington D.C. I finally had a chance to visit the Museum of African American History and Culture. A popular phrase in black and womanist theology which I saw throughout the exhibits is “Making a Way Out of No Way.” Holding fast to the dream of God, African Americans have consistently been able to walk into being a path toward freedom when it seemed most impossible.
The dream they were told to believe in by the slave traders and masters was one of grateful submission, but incredibly - while a message of servitude was preached, a message of liberation was heard. And this dream of God for all God’s people to be free, guided the feet that created paths of the underground railroad, guided the feet of soldiers marching in war for liberty for all, guided the feet in the reconstruction era creating new paths for community prosperity and civic participation, guided the feet of millions during the great northern migration, guided the feet of those who knew to keep God’s dream alive they had to create their own churches as spaces to nourish and share this dream of God for their freedom with one another. This is the dream that guided the brave feet marching for freedom and justice during the civil rights campaigns, and continuing to march in the streets today for black lives to matter and the ability to exist in the world without the assumption of criminality simply for having darker skin.
Now the dream of the white supremacist empire which says God created a racial hierarchy and that what is best, what is normal, is that which is rooted in whiteness, and those closest to whiteness have a right to dominate others, was well on display at this museum as well. This is a dream that unfortunately still guides and infects many of the laws, structures, and institutions of this country.
But it isn’t the most powerful dream. That was so clear to me at this museum, the dream of God that African Americans have held on to despite unimaginable, horrific suffering and oppression, is the one that will win out in the end, the dream that calls forth black excellence and black beauty and celebrates it as good, and holy, and needed for God’s dream to be fully realized.
So which dream is guiding us in our response to the ongoing struggle for racial equity today?
The final group and path that I want to briefly mention are the Climate Pilgrims who have spent the last 65 days walking over 1,500 kilometers from the Vatican to Poland for the annual climate summit, COP 24 this year. They are seeking to walk into being the path of an integral ecology as called for by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si, a renewed spirituality and vision that sees all of God’s creation as interconnected, as precious and worthy of care and protection, and prioritizes ecological well being over a consumer and profit driven culture. They have been collecting the prayers and dreams of people throughout the world along their journey and are presenting them now to the leaders gathered at COP 24.
The dream of the anthropocentric (human centered) empire is again one of hierarchy and domination, seeing the created world as a commodity to be used and discarded as needed for individual profit and gain. It is a dream that has severed the intimate bonds that connect all life and keep us healthy, and it is a dream therefore that is killing the planet and all life that calls earth home.
These climate pilgrims by walking this new road are hoping to inspire God’s dream for healthy and flourishing life throughout creation with others, so that we can make some serious changes to our global economic systems and practices before it is too late.
Which dream is guiding our own responses to the ever worsening impacts of climate change?
With the dreams of empire getting the most air time these days, it may seem like the dream of God has been forgotten, distorted, or is even dead. But I was reminded and challenged by an e-mail newsletter that I get from a reflection by the Rev. Anna Blaedel, to ask in this season of Advent: what if the dream is not dead, just waiting to be born?
Our Scriptures and the living history of our faith witness to us that the dream of God has survived generations and millennia of war, conquests, oppression, slavery, and environmental degradation. If we have forgotten the dream, if we can’t see the vision clearly, or if we have lost our hope, perhaps we are not spending enough time with the dream keepers. By stepping outside those places of power and privilege we hold, by making ourselves vulnerable and gaining a new perspective, we water the seed of the dream implanted in our hearts at our inception as imago Dei; we can hear the voices of those crying out from desert spaces and have the courage to wade through the waters reminding us of our baptism, cleansed from sin, and called into a community of solidarity walking the path of liberation together, preparing the way for God’s peace, justice, and righteousness to take on flesh in the world.
In this season of Advent, this season of pregnant preparation for dreams gestating in darkness, let us hear once again and hold fast to this dream of our faith, this dream of God, passed down through the centuries, through the ancestors, through courageous and faithful women and the children they raised, and let it guide our path so that the roads we are creating by walking are roads that do pave the way for us to welcome Christ into the world anew.
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